On Sunday October 16 young Hong Kong dissidents protested outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester. Many of those present had fled President Xi Jinping’s brutal crackdown on freedom of speech.
What made this protest different was that Chinese diplomats chose to attack the demonstrators and dragged one of them, Bob Chan, into the consulate, where they subjected him to what he described as a “punishment beating”.
Such a violent intervention by supposed diplomats should be unforgivable. What makes it worse is that the defiant consul-general, Zheng Xiyuan, not only admitted he had taken part in the violence but said that he considered it his duty to do so. At the very least, the consul and anyone else identified as part of the attack should have been declared persona non grata and kicked out of the country. Yet the government has done little except call in the chargé d’affaires for a formulaic ticking off by an official, rather than a minister.
The Foreign Office says it is waiting to see if the police will charge consular officials, but as the Chinese government made clear last week, diplomatic immunity will not be lifted. China even went so far as to threaten Britain should we continue to accept Hong Kong dissidents here. Our weak response was noticed and China upped the pressure by warning of a “disaster” for Britain.
None of this should come as a surprise. China continues to support Putin’s claims to Ukraine. It has militarised its bases in the South China Sea and it continues to threaten Taiwan with invasion. It has put a quarter of a million Tibetans in forced labour camps. In Xinjiang, Uighur women are forcibly sterilised, the men are put in labour camps and the children are also sent to re-education camps. Yet despite all the evidence assessed by independent experts indicating that this policy amounts to genocide, Britain refuses to acknowledge it as such.
The reality now is that we are facing an axis of totalitarian states, who challenge our belief in democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We need to show that we are resolved to stand up for our values, or we will be forced to re-learn the costly lessons of the 1930s. What better place to start than by sending the Manchester diplomats back to Beijing.